BeerBorg

lets say I have a very high alcohol by volume beer like a barley wine. would there be active yeast to carb if it sat in a secondary for a month before bottling? or would you just bottle it from the primary and bottle condition it for an extra long time to mellow out the alcohol rocket fuel quality?

As long as you aren't pushing the ABV tolerance of the strain then you are probably fine, but if you are then I'd find a dry yeast that does not attenuate more then your original strain* but has a higher abv tolerance, and then shake a grain of it into every bottle.

*The not attenuate more part is important, or you will get bottle bombs. A yeast with less attenuation is actually a good idea or a yeast that only eats simple sugars if you want to be totally safe. It will still do the job as long as you are priming with simple sugar and it has a higher abv tolerance.

Windsor Ale Yeast would be a safe bet. It has a very low attenuation.